I present you sexeee anecdote: when I was 2 I had chubalicious baby fat, the kind that fell in rolls down my legs and arms. My hair was short and whitish blonde. I had a drooly mouth cuz I chewed on everything. And because I wasn’t some prodigy-pooper I was bottom heavy in a diaper like all my tot friends.

Being anti child porn is sorta like the ultimate DUH, isn’t it? Duh! Who the fuck says they are down with child porn? And yet, our country/world can’t keep its creepy hands off of them. So what’s the dealiyo?

Hopefully, for legal reasons you said none (they are all under 16!). And of course, the law doesn’t say “don’t be sexually attracted to such and such age” because who finds what sexually attractive is unknown until that person acts on it. But the message is pretty clear: kids can’t consent so their rapings and molestations are not game for your genital fondles.

Images 1 and 2 were obvious, hopefully. They are children so clear as day. But what about images 3 & 4? Seriously. What’s the difference between these images and countless twenty somethings? Or vice versa. What’s the difference between these images and countless images of women meant to be sexually attractive for adult men (legally)?

The only degree of separation is age. Yet age hardly means anything when men are being conditioned to *images*–the looks, the expressions, the posturing, the body proportions, the facial structures/features. Not to mention all these different elements (body proportions, facial features, expressions, etc) are not age specific–plenty of females from about 14-30 can pull this off (and sometimes those limits get much younger/older).

With the ongoing and successful attempt by media and advertising to infantilize over 18 females and hypersexualize the underage, who here is surprised to learn that pedophilia and predatory men are a frickin’ pandemic?

I know I’m a bit of a sell out for using the Miley Cyrus image for the poor girl is the now the face of the weird daddy-daughter complex and that must feel wretched. But that’s not even the part the makes my head spin the most. Nor is the part where I tell Annie Leibovitz straight up she has the artistic merit of a foam cup: cheap and bad for the environment. Or the part where I ask Mr. & Mrs. Cyrus wtf were they thinking!? (also fodder for the comments: what do my readers think of licensing parents?)

And don’t get me wrong: all that stuff is fuuuuucked (and I’m happy to repeat as much in comments for those who misread me). But you know what really gets me going? How the adults are reacting.

First of all, Disney Parents, Miley does not owe you and/or your Disney prince/princesses an apology–she’s 15, she is still a legal child.

Second of all, it’s not her fault. How, pray tell, is a person ( a child no less!) to be sexualized without someone being the one to sexualize her. Excuse my agenda for a second, but these pictures would not be sexy or sexual if women’s bodies were not appropriated. Period! They are sexual because of conditioning, not innateness, so that actually makes it the sexualizer’s fault–not Miley’s. Adults are uncomfortable for a reason they will not admit to: they see those images and they sexualize her and it makes them (rightly!) feel wrong.

But never mind all these 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 year old almost-legals feeling the predatory burden that is passing-for-legal-sexyay-woman. Some people don’t even want toddler knocks offs, like 10 year olds or something. They want the real deal. You remember images 1 & 2 up there? The obviously-too-young? Yeah, seems they don’t even need mussed hair and make up to get their sexy on. Roll Clip!

So as you see, there is also a huge and increasing demand for *really young* girls.

…I’m wondering how long it would take to normalize “toddler-plants”: plastic surgery for all us free-choicin’-women to get body reductions so we are 3 feet tall, our flesh all bubbled out, with puffy cheeks and baby teeth inserts (cuz the rest will be knocked out during this highly individualistic-empowerfullized operation). Maybe even some saliva injections to get that that drool factor going again (ooo la la)…

We need to keep in mind: pedophilia is not just a need/desire to molest children, it is the very strong obsession to commit a sexually stigmatized act– here the root being the stigma, the branch being children.

Stigma for all general purposes arises from a normalization of some kind-acceptable standards- wherein outliers to these standards are the stigma (bad, wrong, illegal). These standards tend to come from or are heavily influenced by our religious and government institutions as well as our media.

While religious and government entities set up a set of sexual circumstances we are to follow (and usually referencing some BS book known as The Bible) the media/advertising industries then take the outliers to these standards and sexualize them for profit. The point being to create a very powerful buying stimulus wherein our desires are strictly tied to feeling bad, naughty, taboo. Some people forget that these feelings -disgust, dirty, wrong-are all very powerful and arousing as well. Couple these stigma-stimuli with the naturally and physically enjoyable feeling of being aroused/orgasming and voila!: we have created a huge demand for sexual stigma. One very few admit to –because what would be the fun if it wasn’t as sneaky, or mischievous?

(And perhaps now we can explain why all these religious men go nuts for kids–they get the added stimulus of thinking they are going to hell for their sexual activities. A mind-blowing orgasm for sure)

The thing is media and advertising are not stagnant industries. They are continuously shifting to keep this stigma satiated by sensationalism and new sexually “naughty” ventures. What we once thought was too young for presenting-as-sexual to men is now normalized through overexposure and must move on to keep the public interested (re: buying). It is time for a new set of girls, younger, more wrong.

In this process we have ensured a whole new generation will not escape the fate of this destructive crossfire, that our daughters and sisters will feel this violence at much younger ages, ages so formative that these experiences will live on in them forever. What’s more, we are teaching men that they are monsters, uncontrollable, sexual deviates whose sexually stigmatized acts should be celebrated.

This sickness is contagious and growing and the system is in place. Our countries, our world–we have created a Pedo-Mill.

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

“They are continuously shifting to keep this stigma satiated by sensationalism and new sexually “naughty” ventures. What we once thought was too young for presenting-as-sexual to men is now normalized through overexposure and must move on to keep the public interested (re: buying).”

The exact same process is aplicable to porn.

Just one more thing. I think we have to be careful when we blame adults for doing the sexualizing. The very first argument used against the “stop hypersexualizing girls” cry is “Hypersexualizing a kid? You are sick for thinking that! We just thought she would look really cute in that thong and push up bra”. The blame is shifted to the people doing the calling, not the people doing the damage.
I just think it’s an argument we have to be careful with. (I apologize if this doesn’t make any sense, I cannot seem to get the words right)

No I get what you are saying and I think it’s on the exact point I was hoping to make clear.
The adults I’m referring to are the ones in articles, blogs, and media making the statements “Miley’s photo is sexualized”–to which I respond: yes but how do you think it got there?

For it to not be sexual we’d have to remove the sexual meaning of her pose, her expression, women’s bodies. And no one, esp. adult men, wants to give up those sexual meanings. It might cost them a boner or two.

Yeah, I think I get it. So to back up the argument that they are sexualizing young girls we have to point out how the pose, expression, etc resembles that of a sexualized adult woman. But even this presents a problem, not only because they are not willing to listen for that long, but also because, as you say, adult women are infantilized in the media. And then it becomes a “chicken-egg situation”.
So what I wonder is: can we apply a short term, “urgent” solution to the problem by getting rid (somehow) of these images OR do we have to remove the sexual image that is attached to (all) women by default?

A point I’m trying to make is that there really isn’t any “resembling” of adult women because “adult” implies an age barrier and our images are not (and it’s hard to make them as such) age specific. Instead it’s just some set of features promoted as beautiful/sexual that can be performed, and are being performed, by a range of ages.

“not only because they are not willing to listen for that long”
Who is “they”?–I think I will be able to respond to the chicken/egg question when I know.

“can we apply a short term, “urgent” solution to the problem by getting rid (somehow) of these images OR do we have to remove the sexual image that is attached to (all) women by default?”

I don’t know if I understand this completely: is your question, simply, how do we get rid of these images?

Sorry, by “they” I meant the advertisers. They defend themselves by saying “you are sick, how could you think that about us?” (it’s an argument I’ve heard many times before). So I was thinking how we can get into their heads that yes, this IS sexualization of girls. And I get your point that this sexualization is not age specific, but in that case, and since aside from feminists no one seems to be against the sexualization of women, how can we make them see that this is what we claim it is if we cannot compare the images of girls to those of the standard of sexualization, that is, of course, adult women? So I then concluded that the best way to get rid of this trend of sexualizing young girls is to get rid of the sexualization of all women all together. Which could take decades. And meanwhile, child porn is spreading like wildfire, undoubtedly powered by these very images.
Now I’m all confused 😛

“So I was thinking how we can get into their heads that yes, this IS sexualization of girls.”

Hmm, well I think an important part to remember is that one of the reasons Miley’s photo caused this stir is because people (not necessarily advertisers) were saying “this *is* sexualization.”

I’m actually not of the opinion (and maybe you are) that people don’t recognize this stuff as sexualization. My point is more we are being conditioned to think this sexualization is okay, given the normalization of it.
Miley’s photo caused more of a stir simply because she was seen as the “role model” for really young girls and Mainstream America still likes to pretend they value wholesomeness or something. As well, Man-America does not want to admit to their female counterparts yet how much they are consuming and sexually enjoying the images of young girls.

But under a lot more typical circumstances I think this photo, esp. if she was unknown, would fly right past our critical sensibilities and the guys would hoot and holler and the women would roll their eyes and say “hehe typical menz!”

“So I then concluded that the best way to get rid of this trend of sexualizing young girls is to get rid of the sexualization of all women all together.”

Yeah, that’d be great to formulate an answer for (let’s do it!). My post, which is part 1 of a 3 part series, is more just a bunch of deconstructing and complaining. 🙂
I think consumers always have the say which is best utilized with education. And I believe the age of blogs and personal networking sites have great potential to “spread like wild fire” as well. Unfortunately, the best way to strong arm advertising in a capitalist economy is to hurt them in their pocket book and yes that could take a while.
I have no master plan besides: speak out, blog it, promote the blogs that blog it, attend the conferences you can, offer yourself as a speaker to schools, get involved with charities that help young girls and women out of sexually abusive situations, perform physical protests of stores that sexualize women and girls, graffiti ads, write letters (get a whole bunch of people to do it with you to make the point), all while taking your vitamins, resting, and remembering Rome wasn’t built in a day. 🙂

That sounds like a plan! I’m more of the grab a big hammer, hit advertisers and capitalists on the head while saying “you can’t do that, and that’s that”. Or, as people like to call it, “censorshipzzz”. But hey, I am half mad 😛

It’s interesting though that there’s all that fuss about the Annie Leibovitz photo (which I agree is trashy) and none about what Disney do to this young woman and all others like her. I mean the one thing you can say about Leibovitz’s photo is that Cyrus at least does look fifteen in it. Because of all the photos I’ve seen of this fifteen year old girl apart from this, she looks like thirty five year old cabin crew – six inches of make up, groomed to the max. Maybe Leibovitz was just being a lot more honest about the sexualising than Disney are.

Yea I agree Disney is not taken to task enough on what they do to children (I actually a have a very long post in my head on this! Should write it eventually).
I don’t know what Leibovitz’s exact intentions were and I can’t tell from the photo if she had any besides messing with people’s comfort levels.

That video about child rape and child pornography is just so disturbing. Really this whole post is exactly how I feel about the whole situation. All of the young girls at the out of school hours care where I work love miley cyrus and want to be her. It really sickened me to read that Miley had apologised for the incident as though it was her fault and not the fault of the rapist daddies, photographers, agents ad nauseum. Because that makes sense. Urgh. Makes me too angry.

And over half a million men are jerking off the child rape or filming themselves raping children in the united states. How can women live like this? How can this be ok, a non-issue, a sad but non-actionable fact?

Please do write up a post on Disney. I’m actually thinking of starting a blog or website devoted to feminist critiques of popular culture. There is a real lack of feminist analysis of what happens to girls and women in tv shows, movies, literature etc.

“And over half a million men are jerking off the child rape or filming themselves raping children in the united states”

Yeah and remember the figure he gave was for a period of only 36 months, only catching certain files being traded. Not even the whole picture!

“How can women live like this?”

I honestly don’t think most women know. Or, if they do know about these figures, they don’t want to (or can’t imagine) their beloved is using this material–how devastated they would be to find out!
My guess is porn is discussed very little in any relationship. It’s something the husband/S.O does in the other room on a “don’t ask don’t tell basis” and women accept it more and more as they too are being bombarded with sexual images of their gender/sex (or they are pressured to use it too).

“I’m actually thinking of starting a blog or website devoted to feminist critiques of popular culture.”

I think that would be fabulous. Your Firefly series is making some excellent points and I love that you break it down by script.
This stuff can be so subtle and nuanced, having that level of analysis is incredibly beneficial.

It is also a good article on the connection between paedophilia and misogyny, and she stresses that paedophilia is NOT a “mental disease”, but rather something that is socialized into men, and that men need to take responsibility for it.

She also sees the connection between paedophilia and misogyny, and stresses that pedophiles are not “mentally ill” but rather that men are socialized into acting out their power trips and sexual entitlement on those who are the most vulnerable (girls and, because women are infantilized, adult women).

I honestly don’t think most women know. Or, if they do know about these figures, they don’t want to (or can’t imagine) their beloved is using this material–how devastated they would be to find out!
My guess is porn is discussed very little in any relationship. It’s something the husband/S.O does in the other room on a “don’t ask don’t tell basis” and women accept it more and more as they too are being bombarded with sexual images of their gender/sex (or they are pressured to use it too)”
Not usually a topic that I’ve discussed with my RL female friends, but from what I’ve heard, most of them hated porn, but were socialized to accept it as “normal” for men.
Also, in a lot of women’s magazines, there’s advice and tips on how to go along with a boyfriend’s/husband’s porn fantasy.
I think that there’s really so much denial about female sexuality beyond looking sexy for men and playing along with their fantasies.

Your comment got stuck in spam Lara and I don’t know why except for maybe the link?
I read Jen’s piece and it is excellent and I *think* (?) I drew some similar points although this series will be more about the allure of the “naughty” and how much our sexuality is being constructed to sexualize the “no.” (carried over from post “Blogging the no”)
My next installment will cover more adult themes.
And I totally agree painting pedophilia as some disease is a mis-characterization. That’s how they hide it. It’s hard to accept the men we’ve (general “we”) come to know and trust are engaging this material sexually.

“Also, in a lot of women’s magazines, there’s advice and tips on how to go along with a boyfriend’s/husband’s porn fantasy.”

Yes, omg the stories I have from college–offers and requests from bf’s to do videos (with my friends!) for their “stash”. Wtfwtfwtf.
(Is this your first time commenting here? If so: welcome!
“I think that there’s really so much denial about female sexuality beyond looking sexy for men and playing along with their fantasies.”

Agreed.
Men’s orgasms are still too much like the *Ultimate Compliment*. It’s sick, how much we are invested in this (financially, emotionally, psychologically, socially, on and on and on).

In a world where sexiness is submissiveness, youth, and stupidity, children are not that separate from the collective vision of the ideal woman. I do not think that there is something concretely wrong with pedophiles. Equating the “disease” of pedophilia with sociopathy or real psychological issues conceals the point and fails to hold men responsible for their actions. Pedophilia is the darker cousin to the very real and very prevalent image of “sexiness” that our society holds as the feminine ideal.

Jen’s post was quite a good outline of the continuum. To make out pedophilia is some sort of disease completely misses the point of hypermasculinity socialisation. Power is sexxxay. The more power (over another) the more sexxxay. Hence also the popularity of rape porn.